1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management supporting apparatus for acquiring and processing operating state information of a machine to manage an operating state of the machine, a management supporting system, a management supporting program, and a recording medium with the program recorded therein.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known, for instance, the control method for automatically operating state of an injection molding machine (Refer to, for instance, page 3, left column to right column, of Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-191383). In this conventional technology, idling operations are performed by means of the low pressure injection molding method for acquiring reference waveforms before the operation for molding is started to sample waveforms for injection rates throughout the injection process, and injection rates at which acceptable products can be obtained are stored as the reference waveforms. With this technology, when the same product is to be molded, molding is carried out based on the reference waveform previously stored so that the needs for setting the molding conditions is eliminated even, for instance, in production of various types of product each in a small lot to improve the production efficiency.
With this technology, however, when a plurality of machines each put under automatically control by a control unit are used to produce various types of products, it is necessary to check operating state of each machine with each control unit, and the work is very complicated. To overcome this problem, the system is conceivable, for instance, in which control situations of the control units are collectively displayed in a display device by using the Intranet so that operating state of each machine can be checked at one place.
However, if information of contents of control is collectively displayed as it is, determination as to whether the operating state of each machine indicated by the information is acceptable or not is very complicated, which sometimes spoils smooth administration of the system.
Further, in a case of, for instance, an injection molding machine, when a plurality of machines are operating in different operating states respectively, it is difficult to determine the state of each component constituting each of the machines. In a case of consumables for heater or a contactor turning ON or OFF a current to a heater, a servo motor, ball screws, a temperature sensor, the reference lifetime can be determined by referring to the catalog or empirically, but it is extremely difficult to previously determine the time for replacing the consumables with new ones. Specifically, when a heater is used for a long time and the lifetime is about to expire, the insulating portions rapidly degrade to cause short-circuiting. When short circuiting occurs while a machine is running, the resin feed is solidified, and the recovery work is very complicated, so that actually, even though the consumables can sill be used, they are replaced with new ones before expiration of the lifetime. Further, it is necessary to replace the consumables with new ones as soon as possible to prevent drop of the productivity, but in a case where the consumables are produced according to an order, a quantity of consumables must be stored as stocks. To satisfy this need, it is required to determine a quantity of each stocked item according to the operating situation of each machine, and actually a large quantity of stocks is required to be stored to prevent shortage of required parts, so that the management work is very complicated, and a wide space for stocking the consumables is required, which is disadvantageous.